Hi lovelies,
Today I'm going to be wrapping up my series on exercise and I'm mostly going to be discussing my current thoughts on exercise and what/why (if any) I doing right now.
I'm really sorry that this is so late but it wasn't coming together and I kept working on it and it just wasn't working. But finally, finally, I got it done. :)
If you missed the first parts of this series, here's Part 1 and here's Part 2.
Okay, so onto exercise.
After my epitome about exercise and suddenly realising that continuing to exercise as I was was going to end up killing me, I gave up exercise and for the first 2-3 weeks, it was really, really hard. My anxiety skyrocketed and the amount of nervous energy I was expending felt like it tripled. Equally, it was incredibly hard to keep myself still. I would have to literally force myself to sit down and not walk and pace and move constantly in order to keep expending energy. It also didn't help that my mother was not 100% behind my decision to stop exercise all together. Obviously, she supported my decision to do so, but she is a firm believer in the 'exercise makes you happy and healthy' and I had spent an awful long time convincing her that exercise was something I did because it made me happy, not as a way to lose weight and she was pretty desperate to see me happy again. Also, she is fairly fatphobic and didn't want to see me recover in an 'unhealthy' way.
But, despite all that, I stuck to it and continued to abstain from exercise. And, surprisingly, after about a month, all the anxiety just left. It obviously was not gone all together, but all the extra anxiety, the exercise-related anxiety I had been experiencing for so long, it all left. For a while then, I felt more at peace with exercise than I had in a long, long time.
I threw myself at recovery with all the dedication I had put into my eating disorder and I began to recover. One of the characteristics of people with anorexia, or of people that are prone to anorexia have extremely perfectionist tendencies and a fairly one-track mind. To be honest, there is a lot of crap about traits associated with different eating disorders and I don't know how true this is on a large scale. Out of the people I know that have suffered from eating disorders (consisting of EDNOS and anorexia), I would say that, as a whole, we probably have more perfectionist tendencies than the average person, but then, we are all quite similar in many ways so I really don't know whether it's related to eating disorders or not.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that perfectionism, control and having a one-track mind is very true for me personally. So, when I began to recover, I threw every single thing I had into my recovery efforts. I checked Your Eatopia daily, sometimes hourly, I researched ways to increase my calorie intake sneakily, I read and read and read about recovery and eating disorders. That's how my mind works. When it does something, it does something wholeheartedly and throws everything at it. Everything else takes a backseat as I tackle the thing right in front of me. Obviously, I couldn't drop everything for a year or so while I got my mind and body together, but for the first 2 months of full recovery, that was all I focused on.
For that time (often called the Honeymoon Period (skip to about the middle of the article)) I enjoyed the feeling of being able to do what I wanted, to eat all the calories I wanted, to lie around for as often I could within my busy life and not feel guilty about it.
But then a new problem arose. The issue of weight.
Within six months of recovery, I had gained 20kgs. Yes, it seems a lot, but that didn't even bring me up to my pre-ED weight. However, it did bring me up soaring through the ranks of the BMI scale until I was at the top end of the 'healthy' weight bracket. Now, let me state right here that I do not put any stake in the BMI scale as a measure of healthiness, it just excludes too many factors and is kind of inaccurate. If you would like some science and stuff to back up that opinion, check out this article, it quotes studies and stuff.
However, lots of other people put stock into the BMI scale and aside from anything, my new weight was definitely leaning into the heavy side. I'm short (164cm) and I've always had big boobs and big hips and thighs - that does not make for a skinny person. And that's okay. I've spent a lot of time learning to accept that and learning to accept my body as not just okay, but pretty stunning. The problem is, other people don't think that.
As I've already mentioned in this series and probably in other posts as well, my family, particularly my parents, really like exercise and are very fatphobic. Actually, they probably like exercise as much as they do because they are rather fatphobic. But the point I'm trying make is that my new body shape and the fact that I wasn't doing any exercise didn't make for particularly happy or supportive parents. Don't get me wrong, they were supportive in their own way, they wanted me to be healthy and happy, it's just that they thought I was healthiest when I was about 10kgs lighter and doing lots of exercise.
And that was pretty tough. My new weight was something I was still coming to terms with and I was working really, really hard to accept myself for who I was, what I looked like and that both of those were okay. I was having to teach myself lessons from the ground up about accepting myself despite my flaws, that I didn't have to be perfect, that people would still love me if I wasn't perfect and that to me, I was the most important person in the world. All my life I'd been putting others before me and I had to relearn that instinct. I had to teach myself that I was important and that I was worthy of time and space and love and life regardless of mistakes I made.
It was hard, to forge my own way and continue down the path that I now knew was a better path than the one I was on before, especially when I was getting very strong messages to the contrary from my parents. Majorly, this involved exercise. In a way, I understand their point - exercise is healthy in the right amount, it does produce endorphins, it does get you doing something else for a while and can definitely get you outside for a while. Overall, I see the very convincing argument for doing exercise. However, I was in recovery from a restrictive eating disorder and had suffered from exercise compulsion. I was in a different place than the majority of people who are being encouraged to get up and exercise. My views on exercise were new and fragile as it was and I didn't appreciated the dark, disordered part of my brain being encouraged by my parents.
And so, I continued to avoid exercise.
I'm now at the point where I know that I am recovered enough to return to doing exercise, as long as I (and possibly someone else) keep a close eye on it.
So I bit the bullet and started. I've started dance lessons with my very close friend because we've always liked the idea of dancing but never have done. She also went through an eating disorder at the same time as me and so at least we're on the same wavelength about it.
And we love it. We absolutely love it. Currently we do one class a week and sometimes go in a second time for a practice session but are thinking of picking up a second class for next 'term'.
But, at the same time, I'm a bit scared. Exercise has some really bad connotations for me and I know the only way to beat that is to make new connotations and new, good, memories and I can do that. Having a friend there helps. In my darker days, exercise was a very lonely, solitary thing that I did and having someone else there helps dissociate this exercise from other times. Also we're not doing for 'exercise' - we're doing it because we love it.
But I'm still scared that I wont be able to keep everything under control and that I'll spiral back down into compulsive exercise and potentially my eating disorder. I know I have the disposition to develop compulsive exercise and I'm afraid that I will again.
But at the same time, I have to keep believing I won't. I have to keep reminding myself that I am a different person than I was then. I value different things and I have a support network that can and will help me pick up on ED and compulsive exercise behaviours.
I have to believe that I have changed. I can't let fear hold me back from doing something as simple, yet as challenging as exercise. I can't let fear hold me back from doing something I love. Because I do love exercise. I love the feeling of letting go, of being able to leave your problems aside, to be alone with your thoughts if you want, or just being able to let your emotions out. I love being able to have that comradship, that closeness with your friend/s that you do your exercise with and I love the feeling afterwards.
That's the problem with chronic conditions. You never escape them. You just have to learn to live your life in a way that keeps you healthy but allows you to do the things you love.
You learn to adapt.
Today I'm going to be wrapping up my series on exercise and I'm mostly going to be discussing my current thoughts on exercise and what/why (if any) I doing right now.
I'm really sorry that this is so late but it wasn't coming together and I kept working on it and it just wasn't working. But finally, finally, I got it done. :)
If you missed the first parts of this series, here's Part 1 and here's Part 2.
Okay, so onto exercise.
After my epitome about exercise and suddenly realising that continuing to exercise as I was was going to end up killing me, I gave up exercise and for the first 2-3 weeks, it was really, really hard. My anxiety skyrocketed and the amount of nervous energy I was expending felt like it tripled. Equally, it was incredibly hard to keep myself still. I would have to literally force myself to sit down and not walk and pace and move constantly in order to keep expending energy. It also didn't help that my mother was not 100% behind my decision to stop exercise all together. Obviously, she supported my decision to do so, but she is a firm believer in the 'exercise makes you happy and healthy' and I had spent an awful long time convincing her that exercise was something I did because it made me happy, not as a way to lose weight and she was pretty desperate to see me happy again. Also, she is fairly fatphobic and didn't want to see me recover in an 'unhealthy' way.
 |
| Source |
But, despite all that, I stuck to it and continued to abstain from exercise. And, surprisingly, after about a month, all the anxiety just left. It obviously was not gone all together, but all the extra anxiety, the exercise-related anxiety I had been experiencing for so long, it all left. For a while then, I felt more at peace with exercise than I had in a long, long time.
I threw myself at recovery with all the dedication I had put into my eating disorder and I began to recover. One of the characteristics of people with anorexia, or of people that are prone to anorexia have extremely perfectionist tendencies and a fairly one-track mind. To be honest, there is a lot of crap about traits associated with different eating disorders and I don't know how true this is on a large scale. Out of the people I know that have suffered from eating disorders (consisting of EDNOS and anorexia), I would say that, as a whole, we probably have more perfectionist tendencies than the average person, but then, we are all quite similar in many ways so I really don't know whether it's related to eating disorders or not.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that perfectionism, control and having a one-track mind is very true for me personally. So, when I began to recover, I threw every single thing I had into my recovery efforts. I checked Your Eatopia daily, sometimes hourly, I researched ways to increase my calorie intake sneakily, I read and read and read about recovery and eating disorders. That's how my mind works. When it does something, it does something wholeheartedly and throws everything at it. Everything else takes a backseat as I tackle the thing right in front of me. Obviously, I couldn't drop everything for a year or so while I got my mind and body together, but for the first 2 months of full recovery, that was all I focused on.
For that time (often called the Honeymoon Period (skip to about the middle of the article)) I enjoyed the feeling of being able to do what I wanted, to eat all the calories I wanted, to lie around for as often I could within my busy life and not feel guilty about it.
 |
| Who doesn't like a weird gif of scales? Source |
But then a new problem arose. The issue of weight.
Within six months of recovery, I had gained 20kgs. Yes, it seems a lot, but that didn't even bring me up to my pre-ED weight. However, it did bring me up soaring through the ranks of the BMI scale until I was at the top end of the 'healthy' weight bracket. Now, let me state right here that I do not put any stake in the BMI scale as a measure of healthiness, it just excludes too many factors and is kind of inaccurate. If you would like some science and stuff to back up that opinion, check out this article, it quotes studies and stuff.
However, lots of other people put stock into the BMI scale and aside from anything, my new weight was definitely leaning into the heavy side. I'm short (164cm) and I've always had big boobs and big hips and thighs - that does not make for a skinny person. And that's okay. I've spent a lot of time learning to accept that and learning to accept my body as not just okay, but pretty stunning. The problem is, other people don't think that.
As I've already mentioned in this series and probably in other posts as well, my family, particularly my parents, really like exercise and are very fatphobic. Actually, they probably like exercise as much as they do because they are rather fatphobic. But the point I'm trying make is that my new body shape and the fact that I wasn't doing any exercise didn't make for particularly happy or supportive parents. Don't get me wrong, they were supportive in their own way, they wanted me to be healthy and happy, it's just that they thought I was healthiest when I was about 10kgs lighter and doing lots of exercise.
And that was pretty tough. My new weight was something I was still coming to terms with and I was working really, really hard to accept myself for who I was, what I looked like and that both of those were okay. I was having to teach myself lessons from the ground up about accepting myself despite my flaws, that I didn't have to be perfect, that people would still love me if I wasn't perfect and that to me, I was the most important person in the world. All my life I'd been putting others before me and I had to relearn that instinct. I had to teach myself that I was important and that I was worthy of time and space and love and life regardless of mistakes I made.
 |
| That is obviously me - that blond haired man. Definitely. Source |
It was hard, to forge my own way and continue down the path that I now knew was a better path than the one I was on before, especially when I was getting very strong messages to the contrary from my parents. Majorly, this involved exercise. In a way, I understand their point - exercise is healthy in the right amount, it does produce endorphins, it does get you doing something else for a while and can definitely get you outside for a while. Overall, I see the very convincing argument for doing exercise. However, I was in recovery from a restrictive eating disorder and had suffered from exercise compulsion. I was in a different place than the majority of people who are being encouraged to get up and exercise. My views on exercise were new and fragile as it was and I didn't appreciated the dark, disordered part of my brain being encouraged by my parents.
And so, I continued to avoid exercise.
I'm now at the point where I know that I am recovered enough to return to doing exercise, as long as I (and possibly someone else) keep a close eye on it.
So I bit the bullet and started. I've started dance lessons with my very close friend because we've always liked the idea of dancing but never have done. She also went through an eating disorder at the same time as me and so at least we're on the same wavelength about it.
And we love it. We absolutely love it. Currently we do one class a week and sometimes go in a second time for a practice session but are thinking of picking up a second class for next 'term'.
But, at the same time, I'm a bit scared. Exercise has some really bad connotations for me and I know the only way to beat that is to make new connotations and new, good, memories and I can do that. Having a friend there helps. In my darker days, exercise was a very lonely, solitary thing that I did and having someone else there helps dissociate this exercise from other times. Also we're not doing for 'exercise' - we're doing it because we love it.
But I'm still scared that I wont be able to keep everything under control and that I'll spiral back down into compulsive exercise and potentially my eating disorder. I know I have the disposition to develop compulsive exercise and I'm afraid that I will again.
 |
| Truer words have been spoken, in my case anyway. Source |
But at the same time, I have to keep believing I won't. I have to keep reminding myself that I am a different person than I was then. I value different things and I have a support network that can and will help me pick up on ED and compulsive exercise behaviours.
I have to believe that I have changed. I can't let fear hold me back from doing something as simple, yet as challenging as exercise. I can't let fear hold me back from doing something I love. Because I do love exercise. I love the feeling of letting go, of being able to leave your problems aside, to be alone with your thoughts if you want, or just being able to let your emotions out. I love being able to have that comradship, that closeness with your friend/s that you do your exercise with and I love the feeling afterwards.
That's the problem with chronic conditions. You never escape them. You just have to learn to live your life in a way that keeps you healthy but allows you to do the things you love.
You learn to adapt.
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